In choreographer, actor and dancer Joe Goode’s latest piece at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Novellus Theater, The Rambler, he explores Americans’ obsession with moving on and wandering.

“I think the notion of movement and the desire to get to the better place is very present in most Americans,” Goode said. “I’m fascinated by it. I’ve been in the San Francisco Bay Area almost 30 years, but i feel like I wandered a lot during that time with wanting to try new things, encounter different audiences.  There is a definitely a peripatetic impulse that plays out in my work.”

Goode sees that as a positive thing.

“It’s kept me awake and interested, and taught my audiences to expect the unexpected,” he said.

But it can be different on a personal level.

“Like I say in the show, for every rambler, there’s one who’s rambled,” Goode said.  “There’s one who’s been left behind.”

In The Rambler, Goode worked with famous puppeteer (there’s a phrase you don’t hear every day) as a scenic designer to re-imagine a loner. “Think Clint Eastwood meets Siddhartha” it says in the description of the piece.

Goode thinks we have a romantic view of a rambler.

“It’s this loner moving through experiences and making assessments, which connotes strength and character and things that are really admirable,” he said.  “It’s very idealistic and about looking for truth, and many of us are doing that.”

Of course, there’s a flip side.

“It’s very Western,” Goode said. “There’s a community of me and I rather than us and we. We think, ‘What do I need next?’ ‘What’s going to suit my new vision of myself?’ rather than ‘Who am I in this group?’”

Goode says this has an effect.

“Individuals are increasingly isolated even though we have every type of communication device,” he said.

Ironically, as Goode puts on his performance about rambling (at the Yerba Buena till June 18), the Joe Goode Performance Group is settling into a permanent space after 25 years at Project Artaud, in the San Francisco’s Mission/Potrero Hill neighborhood.

Goode says the group has been committed to touring, but he’d like to have a space to cultivate new artists. 

“People do their garage party performances, and then they have to move to Berlin or something because there’s nowhere for them to go,” he said. “I’d like to do something about that by creating a hub where conversations can happen and creating a platform for work I think is important.”